Video with Reportedly AI-Generated Media Purported to Show Croatian Physician Alemka Markotić Endorsing Hondrosol After False Murder Claim on Facebook

A Facebook video purported to show Croatian infectious-disease physician Alemka Markotić and TV host Zoran Šprajc discussing her supposed murder and endorsing a joint-pain product called Hondrosol. The clip and linked article were reported to use AI-generated or manipulated media and to mimic Croatian government branding, directing users toward a scam purchase page.

Risk classification

• Primary risk domain: 4 Malicious actors
• Primary risk subdomain: 4.3 Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation

The incident involves malicious actors using AI-generated deepfakes of trusted public figures to impersonate them and run a fraudulent scam to sell a fake medical product.

Additional risk subdomains

• 3.1 False or misleading information: The deepfake video fabricated a highly alarming and false news report claiming that a prominent physician had been murdered.

Causal factors

• Entity: Human
• Intent: Intentional
• Timing: Post-deployment

The incident was initiated by human scammers who intentionally used deployed AI deepfake generation tools to create a fraudulent video and scam the public.

EU AI Act risk tier

• Risk tier: 3 Limited Risk

Risk Level 3: Limited Risk. The report describes AI-generated content such as deepfakes, which under the EU AI Act are subject to specific transparency obligations to ensure users are informed that they are interacting with AI-generated content.

AI system and alleged parties

• AI system: unspecified
• AI purpose: Deepfake Video Generation; Voice Generation
• Behaviour type: Tool
• Alleged developer: Unknown voice cloning technology developers, Unknown deepfake technology developers
• Alleged deployer: Unknown scammers
• Alleged harmed parties: Zoran Šprajc, People seeking medical advice, Ministry of Health (Croatia), Ministarstvo zdravstva, General public of Croatia, Epistemic integrity, Alemka Markotić

Harm severity

Severity ratings are based on this scale.

Highest direct severity in any category: Minor. Severity is scored from Negligible to Catastrophic in each harm category, for harm the reports describe as caused directly or indirectly by the AI system.

• Physical: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Infrastructure: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Property: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Financial: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Environmental: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Malicious content: direct Minor, indirect Negligible
• Differential treatment: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Civil rights: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Democracy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Privacy: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Psychological: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible
• Epistemic: direct Minor, indirect Minor
• Child sexual exploitation and abuse: direct Negligible, indirect Negligible

Malicious content

Reported: Yes, the report describes a malicious deepfake video and a fraudulent website created to scam users.

Directly caused: The incident directly involved the creation and distribution of a deepfake video on Facebook falsely claiming a physician was murdered to promote a scam.

Inferred additional harm: The malicious content likely reached thousands of Facebook users before being flagged or removed.

Epistemic

Reported: Yes, the report describes epistemic harm through the fabrication of a news broadcast claiming a real person was murdered and endorsing a fake product.

Directly caused: The deepfake video fabricated a false news report claiming Alemka Markotic was murdered and falsely claimed she developed a joint-pain cure.

Indirectly caused: The scam used a fraudulent website designed to look like the official Ministry of Health page to mislead users.

Inferred additional harm: Such deepfakes erode public trust in legitimate media broadcasts, health authorities, and medical professionals.

People affected

• Occurrences reported: 1
• People reportedly harmed: 2
• People reportedly exposed: 2

Potential causes

Management

• Inadequate Platform Safeguards: Social media management prioritized engagement over proactive AI scam detection.
• Delayed Institutional Response: Public health and police agencies react slowly to ongoing online scams.

Technology

• Advanced AI Video Generation: AI generated highly realistic video with synchronized lip movements.
• High-Quality Voice Cloning: AI cloned voices of public figures with realistic tone and pitch.
• AI Text Translation Errors: AI translation tool generated awkward Croatian text with gender errors.

Data Inputs

• Abundant Public Voice Data: Large amounts of public broadcasts of the victims enabled voice training.
• Public Video Material Availability: Existing TV show footage was used to train or overlay deepfake visuals.

Human Factors

• User Susceptibility to Deepfakes: Users struggle to notice subtle lip-sync and audio anomalies in videos.
• Trust in Public Figures: Scammers exploit public trust in famous doctors and TV hosts.
• Urgency-Driven Decision Making: Scammers create artificial scarcity to pressure victims into buying quickly.

Process and Methods

• Slow Social Media Moderation: Facebook failed to automatically detect and remove the deepfake video quickly.
• Ineffective Domain Filtering: Lack of proactive blocking for suspicious URLs mimicking gov websites.

Regulatory Environment

• Lack of Deepfake Regulations: Absence of strict, enforceable laws targeting AI-generated scam videos.
• Weak Online Pharmacy Oversight: Regulatory gaps allow illegal online drug distribution to persist.

Information quality

• Classification confidence: High
• Reason for confidence: The report from Faktograf is highly detailed, providing specific dates, names of the impersonated individuals, descriptions of the video content, and analysis of the fraudulent website. The fact-checking organization verified that the video was synthetic and that the claims were entirely false.
• Ambiguities identified: The specific AI tools or platforms used to generate the deepfake video and clone the voices are not identified.
• Alternative interpretations: None. The evidence clearly points to an AI-enabled financial scam.

Malicious actors used AI deepfake technology to impersonate Croatian public figures, falsely claiming a prominent physician was murdered to promote a fraudulent joint-pain product through a fake Ministry of Health website. The incident represents a minor national security concern, characterized as a consumer fraud operation with localized impacts on public trust and government impersonation.

• Overall national security impact: Minor
• Scope: Single nation
• Primary target: Croatia
• Alleged perpetrator: Unknown

Threat characteristics

• Imminence: Long-term. The incident represents an ongoing strategic concern regarding the proliferation of AI-enabled consumer fraud rather than an active national security crisis.
• Autonomy: Human-controlled. The AI systems were used purely as tools by human actors to generate synthetic media, with humans controlling the creation and distribution.
• Novelty: Established threat. This incident follows an established pattern of deepfake-enabled scams targeting public figures in Croatia and globally.

Impact by dimension

• Physical security: Negligible. The incident is a financial scam and does not involve kinetic attacks, weapons deployment, or threats to physical critical infrastructure.
• Information security: Minor. Deepfakes of a prominent physician and TV host were used to fabricate a murder story. While deceptive, the operation was a commercial scam rather than state-sponsored information warfare.
• Sovereignty: Minor. The scammers created a fraudulent website mimicking the official Croatian Ministry of Health to validate their product, representing a minor exploitation of government authority.
• Economic security: Negligible. The financial impact is limited to individual consumer fraud and poses no threat to strategic industries, financial systems, or national technological advantage.
• Societal stability: Minor. Impersonating public health officials and fabricating news of their murder can erode public trust in health authorities and media, though the societal impact remains localized.